EPA GHGRP · latest available facility reports
Top 50 corporate GHG emitters in the U.S.
The 50 largest U.S. corporate greenhouse-gas emitters, ranked from each facility’s latest available CO₂-equivalent report in the EPA GHGRP 2011–2023 dataset.
Data updated May 2026
This list, in one line
Vistra ranks #1 at 86.3M MT CO₂e, the #50 cutoff to make this list is 9.7M MT (Cheniere Energy). The top three account for 19% of this top-50 total.
- 86.3M MT
- #1 · Vistra
- 9.7M MT
- #50, the cutoff to make this list
- 19%
- Top 3 of top 50
- May 2026
- Latest EPA vintage
EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program facility reports. Covered facilities below the 25,000 MT threshold are not included.
Among the 50 largest U.S. corporate GHG reporters in EPA GHGRP, Vistra sits first at 86.3M MT CO₂e, ahead of The Southern (78.4M MT) and Duke Energy (65.0M MT). The top three are 19% of this top-50 total.
- #1 Vistra
- Top 3 share 19% of top-50
- Vintage May 2026 · latest facility reports
The 10 largest emitters at a glance
Top 10 corporate GHG emitters (MT CO₂e)
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP). Emissions are in metric tons of CO2-equivalent (MT CO2e). Facilities reporting below the 25,000 MT threshold are not required to report and are not included
How this ranking is built
This list ranks U.S. companies using each covered facility's latest available greenhouse-gas report in the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) 2011–2023 dataset. We aggregate those facility records to the parent-company level using the GHGRP's "Parent Company" linkage, so a utility holding company operating dozens of power plants appears once on this ranking.
The 25,000 metric ton CO2-equivalent reporting threshold means that smaller emitters are excluded by design. Independent studies suggest GHGRP captures roughly 85–90% of U.S. industrial direct emissions, leaving a long tail of small reporters and non-covered sources (agriculture, on-road transportation, residential combustion) out of this ranking. Companies whose entire footprint falls below the threshold are absent. For a complete national inventory, the EPA's Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks fills in those gaps with statistical estimation.
What "top emitter" means here
Top-emitter status reflects the latest available reports for facilities covered by this dataset, not a company's full corporate footprint or its emissions intensity. To see which companies are reducing the fastest, see the biggest reducers ranking, which compares each company's earliest reported year against its most recent reported year for companies with continuous reporting.
Sector concentration is high in the top of this list. Electric utilities operating large fossil generation fleets typically occupy six or seven of the top ten slots, followed by integrated oil & gas majors and large refining companies. Cement producers and a small number of chemical companies round out the top 20. This concentration is structural: a handful of sectors run the largest combustion or process emissions in the U.S. industrial economy, and every company in those sectors that operates at material scale is captured by the GHGRP threshold.
Reading the columns
The Total CO2e column sums each covered facility's latest available report. The Facilities column counts the distinct GHGRP reporters associated with that parent in this dataset. The States column counts how many U.S. states host at least one reporting facility for that company, a proxy for geographic footprint diversity. Industry is the company's primary EPA subpart classification; many companies operate across multiple subparts, in which case the company detail page shows the full mix.
Click any company name to see its full facility list, sector breakdown, year-over-year movement, and the underlying EPA FLIGHT records. Companies that have undergone mergers or rebranding may appear under their current legal entity name; the company page notes prior reporting names so longitudinal comparisons remain traceable. This ranking refreshes annually as new GHGRP reporting years are finalized, typically each October for the prior calendar year's emissions.
Every figure on PlainCarbon is rendered directly from EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) data, no number is typed in by an editor. This page draws directly on the EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), no figure is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. For the boundaries on using this data, read our privacy policy, terms of use, and appropriate-use disclaimer.